The whistling stopped.
Something was wrong. The nurse sharks sensed it, too. Ignoring the free lunch, the trio shied away. Had they spotted me?
It’s a common misconception that shark attacks are preceded by ‘dah-da, dah-da, dah-da, dah-da,’ grating strings and blaring horns, accelerating rapidly as the shark gets closer.
Not true. It’s silent, eerily so.
A fish I recognized immediately sleeked into view – a reef shark, his skin flashing silver in the sun. There are several varieties of reef shark – white tip, black tip, gray and silver – but when they’re swimming in your direction at five hundred miles per hour, you don’t stop to check your Fish Watcher’s Field Guide to find out which kind. As I hung there, frozen in fear, he circled the pier, coming so close to me at one point that I could have touched his fin.
I had no intention of sticking around and becoming the main course among the sea of floating hors d’oeuvres, but I didn’t want to call attention to myself.
What had I read in the survivor’s guide?
One. Remain calm. (Easier said than done.)
Two. Don’t splash around like an injured or dying fish. (Noted.)
Three. If a shark approaches, strike it repeatedly with a balled-up fist on its most sensitive parts, the eyes and the gills. Uh, right. The eye in question was passing me again, black as wet coal, round as a silver dollar.
I’d seen sharks in aquariums, but they never looked so big. The shark made another circuit, looming bigger, ever bigger. Blood pounded in my ears. I balled up my fist, holding it close to my chest, getting ready.
The shark shot by, so close I felt the backwash. Its tail touched my leg, scraping along my thigh like sandpaper. His jaw yawned open, his black eye closed, and two yellow jacks that had been wrangling over a mahi-mahi head disappeared in a single snap. Last time they’d scrap over a meal.
While the shark was busy swallowing the jacks, I took the fourth piece of advice from the handbook – I turned and slowly swam away.
I didn’t look back until I reached Pro Bono, hoisted myself up on the rope ladder and threw myself in.
When I dared to look back at the pier, the water was churning as the shark finished off what was left of his feast.
The man still stood at the end of the dock. It was Jaime Mueller.
And I could hear him laughing.
FIFTEEN
LOBSTERS USUALLY MOVE AROUND AND HUNT FOR FOOD AT NIGHT. IT WAS ONCE THOUGHT THAT LOBSTERS WERE SCAVENGERS AND ATE PRIMARILY DEAD THINGS. HOWEVER, RESEARCHERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT LOBSTERS CATCH MAINLY FRESH FOOD (EXCEPT FOR BAIT), WHICH INCLUDES FISH, CRABS, CLAMS, MUSSELS, SEA URCHINS, AND SOMETIMES EVEN OTHER LOBSTERS!Lobster FAQ, NOAA’s National Marine FisheriesService, Northeast Fisheries Science Center
It wasn’t until I got back to Windswept and had sprawled on the bench at the end of our dock that I was able to think, let alone catch my breath.
Did Jaime know I was under the pier? Did he chum the water on purpose, or was it simply a case of my being in the wrong place at the wrong time? I didn’t have an answer.
When I thought I would be able to talk about what had just happened, I slogged up the dock to the house.
Paul stood at the kitchen counter holding a fork like a weapon, stabbing the life out of some meat. As I dragged myself into the room he looked up. ‘Thought we’d barbecue some steaks tonight.’
I frowned. When Paul volunteered for cooking duty, it was usually because he wanted something.
‘Hey, Hannah, what’s wrong?’
I plopped down in a kitchen chair. ‘I could really use some iced tea.’
While Paul assembled a glass, ice, tea and some lemon slices, I decided that nothing was wrong. The last thing that I needed just then was a lecture.
‘How was your expedition?’ he asked, handing me the glass. ‘Successful?’
‘Yes,’ I lied, hoping that he wouldn’t ask to inspect my haul of sand dollars.
‘Good.’ He turned his attention back to the meat, drowning it in salad oil, red wine and vinegar. ‘I hope you’re in a good mood because I need to talk to you about something.’
‘Yes?’
He unscrewed the cap from a jar of lemon pepper and started sprinkling it over the steaks. ‘It all started with Euclid.’
I closed my eyes, pressed the cool side of the glass to my temple. ‘Doesn’t it always?’
‘He wrote “Elements of Geometry” way back in 300 BC. It was so good that no other texts from that period even survive. Euclid wiped out the competition.’
I opened one eye. ‘To quote someone I know, don’t build me a clock, Paul. Just tell me what time it is.’
‘I need to go to Baltimore.’
I sat up straight in my chair, slopping iced tea down the front of my shirt. ‘You what?’
Paul grabbed the back of the chair opposite me, pushed it so close that our knees touched when he sat down on it, and took my hand. ‘Just for a few days. I need to consult a copy of the first English translation of Euclid’s Elements, the one Sir Henry Billingsley wrote in 1570.’
Marsh Harbour had a library, a small one, but I doubted they kept ancient Greeks on their shelves. ‘What’s wrong with the copy you’ve got?’ I asked. The book with the familiar green cover had been sitting on Paul’s bedside table ever since our arrival in the islands.
‘Brent Morris has an original copy, and I need to see it. Billingsley illustrates the theorems in book eleven with three-dimensional pop-ups that are glued to the pages.’
‘Can’t you use your imagination?’ I pouted.
He squeezed my hand. ‘I need to see the book, Hannah. Brent’s also trying to arrange a meeting with Andy Gleason for me. If that pans out, we’ll take the train up to Cambridge for a day. Andy’s done for calculus what I plan to do for geometry, and talking to him will be enormously valuable.’
‘When do you leave?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Fine.’ There was no point in arguing. Paul had to work, I understood that. I was simply along for the ride.
‘It’s charming,’ Paul said a few minutes later, coming up behind me and laying a kiss on my neck.
I backed away, still steaming. ‘What’s charming?’
‘“If therefore a folide angle be contayned under three playne fuperficiall angles euery two of thofe three angles…”’
I pinched his lips together, cutting him off. ‘Do shut up.’
He enveloped me in a bear hug and rested his chin on the top of my head. ‘You’re not angry with me, are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I won’t be away long.’
‘That’s what you always say.’
He tipped my chin up until he was looking directly into my eyes. ‘I mean it. This sabbatical has been the closest thing to paradise…’ He paused. ‘Well, except for the fire.’
‘Yes. Except for that.’
And except for Frank, and Sally, and their little dog, Duffy.
And whoever thought it was a good idea to frighten me away from Poinciana Cove.
The next morning I waved Paul off on the eleven thirty ferry just as Molly was pulling Good Golly up to her dock.
‘Where have you been so early?’ I shouted across the stretch of water that separated our two docks.
‘Teaching a class at the school,’ she called back. ‘Poetry, if you can believe it!’
‘Where’s Paul off to this morning?’ Molly asked a few minutes later as she joined me in my front yard.